Unmarked Journey

by Dexter Findley

titanically thick boughs rising up then dipping back down into the ground to form colossal living arches, its immense trunk hollowed out to form a substantial cavernous space. The tree's papery bark had innumerable Knowledge marks etched into it, some of which looked like they'd be carved and re-carved over hundreds of years. At that moment, in the dark hours of the early morning, its marks were invisible; it loomed over the farmstead, a black mass in the sky, blocking out the stars.

  Olympia jumped out the car and dashed up to the biggest of the buildings. Just as she neared the door, it opened. On the other side of the threshold stood a middle-aged man, his face rough with age and his kindly dark eyes alive with concern.

  'What's happened?' he asked, his East African accent slipping through on the vowels.

  'Get Singoro up, we're experiencing history here. You know that violent force I told you about?'

  'Yes?'

  'It's bleeding through from another reality. It's kidnapped an unmarked woman and killed one of our own.'

  Tsonge's brow furrowed. 'If it kidnapped an unmarked woman that suggests it isn't aware of Knowledge... In which case, how did it make the jump from its own universe?'

  'Either technology or... well, it may not even be human. But the woman it captured was a close friend of Elra - '

  'That unmarked one?' he interrupted.

  'Yes. So maybe they're using this other woman as a lure.'

  '...so Elra's their end goal? If they could capture her friend, why wouldn't they just capture her?'

  She looked at him darkly. 'I don't know. Maybe they fear her. Either way, we need to let the others know now. I'll see you both by the tree.’

  As she walked out the door, Olympia was overwhelmed by a feeling of immediate danger. A troubling connection manifested itself in her consciousness, but she brushed it off to concentrate on the task at hand. She dashed off in the direction of the sprawling baobab tree, her mind sensing its innumerable marks, unable to contain her excitement about what was going to happen.

  Thirty

  Olympia couldn't remember the last time the tree was used fully. They'd recently connected it to a five year old Puerto Rican child with an aptitude for Mind Knowledge, and did a test run; but as for using it to communicate with everyone... vague memories of the death of a Wise when she was still a teenager was all she could recall.

  The marks that covered the tree's surface were all unique; each one representing a person. There were close to two thousand marks etched into its bark, but many of those were defunct, their equivalent people long dead, meaning the number of living was closer to three hundred. Each one of those living people had their tree-mark scribed on their cerebrum, the part of the brain that dealt with consciousness, giving them a permanent mental connection to the tree. By interfacing with the tree’s living matter, another person with Mind Knowledge (like herself, but the twins were especially good at it) could communicate with all of them at once.

  Genius, Olympia thought, for the umpteenth time. Incredibly difficult to achieve, but startlingly elegant. Each person connected to the tree had to be proficient in Mind Knowledge, and all it required was someone incredibly adept in Change Knowledge (of which about three existed in the world at the moment, one of which was on their way here, in fact) who could scribe the mark on their brain. Why a tree had been chosen as the medium was anyone's guess, as far as she was aware it had been used in this way for at least four hundred years.

  Olympia had often wondered why all the people with Mind Knowledge didn't just have each other’s marks scribed on their brains, creating what would essentially be an international telepathic network. But having hundreds of other streams of consciousness running through your mind may not be everyone's idea of fun, she reasoned: not to mention the obvious privacy issues. She, more than anyone, could empathize with that: her own Mind Knowledge focus, which allowed her to perceive connections in the universe, could sometimes be a significant burden. Explaining it to people was impossible, to the extent that she sometimes had difficulty coming to terms with it herself. She felt like there may be two of her: the human, which she made a point of separating as completely as possible from the Wise, who could understand the secrets of reality and was weighed down by that burden of Knowledge.

  A few moments later Tsonge emerged with a Singoro, his twin. The two of them differed in one obvious way: Singoro was an albino, with snow-white skin, silver hair and ruby eyes; making him and Tsonge like a human yin-yang, a comparison they'd grown tired of hearing over the years. He smiled when he saw Olympia. 'What time do you call this?'

  'Time for action,' Olympia replied.

  'Tsonge told me. Bad news.'

  'Bad news.' Tsonge echoed, looking grim.

  'You make it sound like someone's had an accident,' Olympia quipped, only semi-jokingly. 'We're entering a critical point in the history of the Marked, possibly humanity itself.'

  The brothers looked at each other. 'Ah, Greeks. Always so dramatic,' said one.

  ‘She speaks true, brother,' the other said, theatrically. ‘What is life, if not a tragedy?' They both cackled as Olympia rolled her eyes.

  All three entered the hollow in the baobab. It was dark, slightly damp and musty.

  'Do you want to light the fire, or shall I?' Tsonge asked.

  'How about - ' Singoro began, before he seemed to realize something. 'Anna should be here.'

  'Yes!' Tsonge confirmed.

  'Anna?' Olympia asked, an edge of annoyance in her voice. 'Isn't she a bit young?'

  'Never too young. Who knows when this will happen next!?'

  Anna was their niece, dearly beloved to both of them. 'I'll get her,' Olympia announced, inwardly rolling her eyes.

  While she was gone the two brothers scraped some wood off the inner side of the tree and made a little pile of shavings. Singoro snapped his fingers just above the pile and it immediately combusted into a small, jolly fire.

  'You always used that trick to wow the ladies, didn’t you?’ Tsonge chuckled, throwing some sticks on.

  ‘Half the time I didn’t need to,’ Singoro laughed, ‘the ladies around here seem partial to white men anyway!’

  A few minutes later Olympia returned with Anna, a small, shy girl of six, still rubbing the sleep from her eyes. They found the two brothers sitting cross-legged either side of their fire in the hollow of the tree.

  ‘Anna, my girl, come and sit down,’

  'What are we doing, mjomba?' she asked.

  'We're going to talk to lots of people in a special way,' Singoro replied.

  'Why is there a fire?'

  The brothers grinned at each other and then at Olympia, who was crouching on the periphery of the circle that had formed.

  'When our mama mlezi showed us her ways, that's how she began things. She said to take some of the tree's wood and smoke it over a fire, to breathe in its essence. It will help us talk through it better. Now, mpwa, sit there and watch. One day perhaps you will do this.'

  Anna sat quietly, intrigued, as Singoro began to sing, laying down a syncopated vocal rhythm that resonated deeply within the hollow space of the tree. The fire between them flared, its quiet roaring mingling with his timeless, sonorous song.

  Tsonge joined in with long, drawn out notes, only slightly higher in pitch than Singoro's rhythm. To Olympia, it sounded like there were more than two people singing.

  The two brothers' eyes had a far-away look about them, as if they were gazing across great distances, both inner and outer. Gradually, the marks on the tree's bark began to glow like dying embers, or like groups of bio-luminescent insects, until the whole ancient mass of boughs and branches shone like a faint beacon in the African night.

  Thirty-one

  An urgent knock came at Elra's door.

  'Hey! Wake up! It's hit the fan,' said Kai, his voice muffled through the woodwork.

  One of her eyes sleepily opened. Outside the window London looked serene in the half-light of a grey dawn. 'What time is it?'

  'Time to
put on some clothes and come downstairs.'

  There was something of a commotion in the hideout. When Elra descended she found everyone, including a few people she didn't recognize, standing in a circle in the living room. At their center stood a young Arabic-looking woman and a heavily bearded middle-aged man, presumably her father. Elra noted that Kai was looking down and avoiding eye contact, nervously biting the edge of his nails.

  Elra's entrance was met with a few raised eyebrows, especially from the individuals she hadn’t seen before. Hiero stepped forward, his expression grim but somehow feigned, Elra thought.

  'Rania brings bad news, I'm afraid. Tell her.'

  He stepped aside as the young woman approached. She wore her long black hair shoulder-length, perfectly framing her very, very beautiful face, looking like someone straight out of the ancient tales of an antique land. She carried a morose look about her, as if she was weighed down by a deep sadness, or a heavy burden of knowledge. Her father, his expression similarly pained, held her shoulders as she spoke.

  'A violent force beyond our universe has broken through into our reality, killing one of our Marked brethren and kidnapping your friend.'

  'My friend?' Elra asked, feeling confused more than anything.

  'Yes. We are all in danger, but you especially. The Wise seem to think that the force desires you particularly.'

  'Wait, which friend...?' she asked, immediately realizing who it was. '...Not Cali?'

  'That is her name,' Rania replied, her beautiful gaze